


teach me to breathe

by goodmourning



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, i didnt even proofread this just a warning, second fic [still sweating], u might vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1388278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmourning/pseuds/goodmourning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is picked apart with steel and dark smoke.<br/>You are shattered and left with sharp edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	teach me to breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shelbyeverdeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelbyeverdeen/gifts).



The world is numb, her hand turns cold.

Her arrows were sharp enough, her legs not quite as quick.

She is picked apart with steel and dark smoke.

You are shattered and left with sharp edges.

Inside you, a city you took so long to build, from the rocky foundation to the hard stone on every skyscraper on view collapses.  You choke on the dust, its color gray and rising like a shy wave growing into a tsunami, nearing you, nearing you, wrapping its hands around your neck and whispering words of a consummation you don’t want.

 

* * *

 

Lydia hauled on the body, lifting it from the ground a few inches.

“Scott! _Scott_!” she yelled into his face.  He sat on the ground, on his knees, Allison’s hand and most of her arm still on his lap.  Lydia grabbed that hand, tugging on it as to pull the girl back from the very kingdom of death.  “Scott, help me!  Goddamnit, fucking help me!”

He took a few seconds before answering, his face far away.  “It’s no use,” he told her, and she slapped him with her right hand.

With small hands and an iron back, she tried to carry her best friend, attempting to move her to Deaton’s, to a place where she’d be taught how to breathe again. _I’ll teach you myself_ , Lydia pulled on Allison’s jacket, lifting the soft leather-bound torso from the cement floor, _I’ll spend my whole life teaching your heart to beat again if you promise to breathe._

The banshee cursed.  She cried.  She dragged the corpse maybe ten feet with the sliver of hope that somewhere in his clinic, Deaton had some instructions on resurrection.

“Lydia”

Water.  The voices sounded like underwater, drowned by the crashing of waves from a sea she had never been too.

“Lydia,” it said again, and a warmth kissed her shoulder.  It was Scott.  It was always Scott, _always_.  Scott, who’d held Allison last, Scott who’d hear her last words.  Scott, her friend, who had been gifted with Allison’s last breathe, the very thing Lydia was trying to force into the strong cold lungs of her best friend.

He guided her away from the body, withstanding her scratches, her spit, her insults.

“We can do something!  We can, we can still do something, _Scott_.”

In this world they lived in, in this crazy fucking world where people grew hair and nails and sharp teeth, where a chunk of silver erupted and dematerialized a soldier made of smoke, where the dead spoke into her head, moved with her legs, touched with her arms, in this world there _had_ to be something to teach a warrior how to breathe.

Scott’s arms closed around her, supporting her body as dust and ash filled her insides, leaving her in the form of a loud scream.

 

.

 

He was dead.

He - or whatever it was - cracked and broke into sand the same way her heart had when the steel blade cursed Allison into an endless sleep.

She was supposed to feel at least a spark of elation.  A breeze, a hint of desire quenched, the fires of vengeance having burned down their enemy.

The Nogitsune was dead.  So was Allison.

Lydia was numb.  She went home.

 

.

 

At the funeral, she noted the depth of the hole.  Black mass encased the body, sealing her tight.  Lydia memorized the size, the nails, the wheels in her head turning and drinking in as much information as she could.

Tears decorated her face.  Inside, she ran through the woods, a wolf in search for home, howling for the lost member of her pack.

 

.

 

Earth filled her nails and stained her beige skirt, but Lydia Martin was beyond caring.  A week had transpired before she was secure on her plan: shovel acquired and casket opening instructions memorized.   _The things you find in the internet._  If she weren’t half dead, she’d have snickered.

Allison, on the other hand, was completely dead.  Totally and utterly.  Lydia didn’t see the rotting skin, or smelled the growing stench, nor acknowledged the black blood pooled at the bottom of her body, leaving the top pale and marble-like.

It had taken long, embarrassingly long for Deaton to finally make an effort on finding the resurrection scroll.  When he did, he hadn’t so much as handed it to her before she was out of his clinic, her short legs stomping on the ground like earthquakes.

 _It will work_ , she told herself, _Allison, come back to me._

Red hair grew dirty with brown earth, some grass clinging to the bottom curls.  She tripped once, skinned her knee, and bled.  Lead became her voice, bellowing the ancient language with strength, making it as loud as she could so God could hear.   _Do you hear me?_ , she all but yelled, _Do you hear me, you old God? You will not take her from me!  You will give her back, I’ll make sure of it!_

A scream left her throat, rubbing it raw.

Allison remained cold.

Lydia stumbled, falling farther into the ground.  Lost.

“But. . .” she tugged on her shirt, “I did everything right.  I did EVERYTHING right!”  Ripping seams left her belly bare, letting a torrent of wind run it cold.  “You listen to me, _you_!” She stood up and faced the sky.  “ _You give her back NOW._ ”

 

.

 

You lose.  You grow cold.

But not cold enough to match her.

And then it hits you.

 

.

 

The scroll called for a small knife, required to open the enchanter’s palm and allow blood to drip into the mouth of the recipient.  Lydia had done it hours ago, before she first began to speak the words.

_I was never supposed to teach you to breathe._

The blade is cold and shiny in Lydia’s white hand.  She positions it over her chest, on top of her red core.

_You had to teach me to be cold._

 

* * *

  
Friends and family gather around you, not knowing you are smiling and happy and cold in your black bed.  She grabs your hand with her own, still covered by the black fingerless glove she went to sleep in.  You’re dead, but you've never felt so alive.


End file.
